Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Strength for the Day of Adversity

If you faint in the day of adversity,
Your strength is small.
(Proverbs 24:10)
To Hebrew word for “faint” means to slacken, abate, be feeble, fail, forsake, give up. The word for adversity, tsarah, literally means “tightness.” By usage, it refers to an adversary, affliction, anguish, distress, tribulation or trouble. Strength is your firmness, capacity or means. The Hebrew word for “small,” tsar, means “tight” or “narrow.”

In other words, if you give up in the day of tightness, it is only because your capacity to overcome is too tight and your inner resources too narrow.

What to do? Go back a few verse for the answer:
A wise man is strong,
Yes, a man of knowledge increases strength.
(Proverbs 24:5)
A wise man is strong and by knowledge increases strength. This word for “strength” in verse 5 is the same as in verse 10. It is exactly what you need to overcome.

So now the answer is simple — if you know how to get wisdom. But that is simple, too. Wisdom comes from the LORD, and if you ask, He will give it freely to you:
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will received anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. (James 1:5-18)
Once again, it all comes down to faith. Ask in faith, with no doubting. God will freely give you wisdom and He will not reproach at all for asking. He is glad to impart it to you — He wants you to overcome and enjoy the victory.

God gives us wisdom through His Word. “The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7).

God gives us wisdom through His Son. “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God — and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31). Wisdom is about Jesus and the glory realm of God.

God gives us wisdom through the Holy Spirit. “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Ephesians 1:17). Here again, wisdom is about Jesus and the glory realm of God. It is also about inheritance, because Paul is speaking to us about the Father. This inheritance of wisdom leads us to the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18).

Go to God for wisdom. Ask in faith, and you shall receive. You will begin to enter into the glory realm of God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — where wisdom flourishes. With this great wisdom you will begin to increase in strength for the day of adversity. “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13).

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